Boffo on Boof

I haven't blogged about the Twins recently, for good reason. Yup, this is the year we start rebuilding. We just haven't been competitive with teams in our division. Granted, our off-season acquisitions are doing what we expected them to (hit the ball), but our vaunted pitching staff has been struggling. There have been a few good pitching outings, but not many.

Earlier this week Carlos Silva was moved to the bullpen and feisty Francisco Liriano was moved into the rotation. Liriano has been very impressive in his relief appearances. I'm not quite sure of the numbers, but he has pitched around 10 to 20 innings, with a statistical 2 K's per inning. Very impressive.

More recently, with Kyle Loshe pitching badly in his last upteen outings, Gardy had to do something. With the Tigers and White Sox increasing their lead, it has been noted that the Twins cannot afford to have below average pitching. Currently our starting rotation ERA ranks dead last in all of the Majors. As a result of poor pitching, Loshe is casualty number 2 in the pitching rotation. With there being no room in the bullpen for Kyle, Gardy sent him down to AAA Rochester. The move opened up a spot on the starting rotation which will be filled by AAA call-up Boof Bonser. (I believe Boof will be filling in, until he starts to suck. Then I believe his job will go to Matt Guerrier.) Boof was one of the acquisitions made for the A.J. Pierszinski (you know that catcher for the ChiSox).

Whether or not Kyle returns to the Majors in Twins uniform will be determined by his performance in AAA. Personally, I'm now more than certain he will be traded by the deadline. He is making far too much money, and not producing. That can't be sitting well with Gardy and Terry Ryan.

If the losing trend continues, we've also probably seen the last of Torii Hunter in a Twins uniform. If the Twins stay in the division hunt, there is no possible way they can let go of Torii. But if we fall further behind, Terry Ryan has shown that he will trade major talent for prospects. Personally, unless our rotation gets much better, Torii won't be a Twins after this season. He may even be playing in another uniform by the end of the season.

On a more positive note, Michael Cuddyer has solidified his hold of right field by playing decent defense. More importantly though, Cuddyer has finally started to produce consistently at the plate. As long as this continues, he will be our everyday right fielder. Also on a positive note, Rondell White has finally had some better luck at the plate the last week or so. Because I haven't seen many of the games, I don't know what has changed about his plate appearances. I doubt he has done anything as drastic as changed his batting stance, but maybe he has changed his position in the batter's box.

Schedule

Today I took a sneak peak at next year's schedule. Unless something changes, this is what my schedule will be:

1st Period - 7th Grade Life Science
2nd Period - 11th/12th Grade Advanced Biology
3rd Period - 8th Grade Physical Science
4th Period - 11th/12th Grade Physics
5th Period - 10th Grade Biology
Lunch
6th Period - 9th Grade Earth Science
7th Period - Prep
8th Period - Study Hall

Overall not to bad. There is one problem though, I don't like having 7th Period Prep. At our school, we don't have 7th period on Fridays, thus I'm being "shorted" one prep period a week. (Actually, 7th Period is 11 minutes longer than every other period, thus it adds up to the same number of minutes through out the week.)

T1 to T2, TV finales

If the due date holds true, today is the last day of the First Trimester. Tomorrow we start on the Second Trimester. I know my wife is hoping that the nausea subsides a lot this trimester. Very exciting. We are one third of the way through the pregnancy!!!!

So, what sort's of things are happening to little Squirmy. Well mom-to-be claims she's feeling some of Squirmy's movements (flutters). And since we haven't had spicy food, I would reaffirm that it probably is Squirmy moving. Also, according to books and websites, Squirmy is going to be looking more normal. Apparently Squirmy is moving out of the "Alien Stage" into the "little human stage."

On to my reality TV update.

First off, Aras won survivor and rightly so after Terry failed to get immunity on the final challenge. Any reasonable person could guess that Terry was gone if he didn't get immunity. I know I wouldn't take Terry to the Final Two. He dominated the competition, and my Vote would be for Terry. I don't think I've seen a survivor competition in which one player dominated the physical aspect of survivor like Terry did. Congrats to him for the dominating show. Really though, he should have been the winner.

American Idol is back on track after Elliot got the boot yesterday. I know the guy can sing, but there is just something I don't get about the guy. I do know what turns me off though, Paula Abul crying her guts out after every contestant gets voted off. Personally, I think the woman is just nuts (or on drugs or something.) I'm definitely getting tired of her. So the finals will consist of Taylor and Katharine, of which Taylor is by far my favorite. After Chris was voted off last week, Taylor definitely became my favorite. Katharine has a good voice, and holds the stage well, however I see her more on Broadway than making a good pop/idol record.

The season finale of the Amazing Race was well, amazing! The hippies won! Frat boys lost. As I saw it, it was a colossal battle between good (Hippies) and evil (Frat Boys). The final task was well suited for the Race. The contestants had to place the flags of the countries they visited in the order they visited them. Of course, going into the final challenge, the Frat boys were in the lead, but somehow couldn't remember the order of the countries in which they visited. (I also laughed when they were trying to figure out what the flags for the various countries were, and would often look at the Hippies, to see what flags they had selected.) I only wish Ray and Yolanda had a better last leg of the Race. They just couldn't keep up with the two other teams.

Two finales I'm waiting for are Top Chef (on Bravo) and the American Inventor (on ABC). I think I may have missed the Top Chef finale, but I know Bravo will repeat the episode at least a bizillion times. Tonight might be the Finale of American Inventor. The finale four contestants/inventors really have done some neat things. My personal favorite is the man that made a new type of baby seat, that appears to be safer than the more traditional safety seat. The young kid that made a new type of bicycle also deserves some recognition. Although I like the guy that made the new game for learning spelling, somehow I don't see that as new invention. Finally, the guy that developed a new training system to teach kids how to catch a football has a great device, but the market is extremely limited. One thing that my wife and I both noticed is that the final four inventors are minorities. The only thing that would have been better would be seeing a woman in the final four.

It's official, mostly

Unless some unforeseen event happens, I will be the Junior High Volleyball coach next year. I have already told a few girls, and they seem to be excited to have me coach. Right now I'm excited, but I know this will be my LAST time I coach Junior High Volleyball (of course, I said that last year when I turned down the position.) But this time I mean it!

1 Day left for Seniors, Juniors that think they are Seniors, Volleyball

Well, there is just one day left for seniors after today. However, this may not be a good thing as I will be failing one senior for the semester if he does not turn in any "make-up" work. Presently he has earned a whopping 37% in Chemistry. This is the first time in my 6.5 years of teaching here that I have had to give a senior failing marks.

On to the Juniors. Apparently they think they have graduated already. Their homework has mysteriously disappeared (they haven't turned it in), and they have decided they don't need to do well on their tests. All this probably shouldn't surprise me because their attitude the whole year has been like this. If it continues, I wonder how many will have to take a 5th year of high school.

Now on to the more interesting news. Our Superintendent came to me today and said he "needed to talk to me". Uh Oh! Well, it turns out that our present Junior High Volleyball coach (who has only had the position for one season), accepted another volleyball coaching position. Previous to the current coach, I held the position for 5 years. Well, it turns out they want me to fill the position again. I'm definitely going to have to think about it. Part of me really wants to take it (the competitive part and the part that enjoyed teaching the kids volleyball) and part doesn't want the job (all the rest of me.) There is another person that has expressed interest in the position, however she has never played or coached volleyball.

Minor Change to Site

Got rid of the cool little baseball clock. The javascript was slowing down the loading of this site on both my home computer and school computer. Now the home computer is pretty understandable, seeing as how I purchased it in 1997 (not to mention that it is a PII, 233MHz, w/ 128 RAM). And yes, the home computer is our main computer we use when not at work.

Battle Robots & Food-Eating Battle Monkeys

O.k., so is this lame or what? But I found two more "Battle" sites. Try your best, but you can't defeat my Robot or my Rock Eating Laboratory Monkey.

glacierman is a Large Robot that walks on Three Spindly Legs, fires Six-Inch Nails, has a 'Ramming Speed' setting, runs on a Single Watch Battery, and is Here To Protect You. Force: 10 Handling: 5 Weaponry: 2 To see if your Battle Robot can defeat glacierman, enter your name and choose an attack: fights glacierman using Force Handling Weaponry

glacierman is a Rock-Eating Laboratory Monkey ...with a Battle Rating of 7.2 To see if your Food-Eating Battle Monkey can defeat glacierman, enter your name:

Unproductive

Today is the High School District Track meet. As a result, half the high school students are absent.

I have been totally unproductive today from about 11:00 on. One reason, it is well over 80 degrees in the classroom with the windows open.

So, not only am I behind on my lessons (for this time of year), but I also don't have the get-up-and-go to get everything done. Boy am I looking forward to the end of school (both today's school day, and the school year.)

100th post

Wow, this happens to be my official 100th post. As far as quality posts, it is probably just number 10 or so though. So, in honor of this post, try battling me. (Yup, grrrbear found yet another interesting site.) Just so everyone know's, I kicked grrrbear's little arse using "agility". In real-life though, put your money on grrrbear.

To battle me, just type your name in the box below, choose your method of attack, and click "battle". Let the chaos begin!!!

glacierman is a Giant Dragon that has an Extra Head and a Swirly Hypnotic Gaze, and can Leap Great Distances. Strength: 9 Agility: 8 Intelligence: 11 To see if your Giant Battle Monster can defeat glacierman, enter your name and choose an attack: fights glacierman using Strength Agility Intelligence

3 x 10^6, 4, 10, & X

Man, has it really been 2,592,000 seconds since my last post. I swear, I thought I just posted to this blog the other day.

Well, the seniors have 4 days left of school this year. Hopefully, that will be enough time to finish our current Chemistry chapter.

As for the other students, they have about 10 days of school left. Which leads me to one giant conclusion. I am really behind in some classes. Not only am I behind in what I should be teaching, I am behind in grading. I've had a biology test that I need to grade sitting on my desk for the last 5 days.

As far as I'm concerned though, I have probably about another 3 weeks of school, at least. After most teachers check out, I will still be cleaning my room/lab and doing inventory. I have much more equipment than most other teachers, which makes both cleanup and inventory longer.

My other school project will probably take all summer. I have "volunteered" to redesign the school website. The redesign will make it more parent friendly and just plain update it. (Some of the information on the website is for classes that were taught 2 to 3 years ago.)

Hopefully I will get a new post or two in before school lets out. (I can almost guarantee that one post will be about our new school counselor we will have next year.)

New Design

I have decided this blog (and it's sister blog) both needed a face lift. We'll see how long it lasts until I get tired of it (or until I'm tired of reader complaints.)

6x10^5, Jobs and Moving, TV

Ahhh... End of School Year fatigue. Yup, that is the excuse I'm going to use for not posting except once every 604,800 seconds.

Update: My wife recently accepted a position within the school I teach in. Yup, she is going to be the new school counselor. I know she's very excited (as am I.) That definitely makes life a little less stressful with Squirmy on the way. New problem though. We have to move.

So we are in search of a place to stay somewhere in the town where we will be working (or in the neighboring town 14 miles away). The biggest problem is though, the towns we are looking at range in population from 200 people to 100 people. As a result, there really aren't a lot of possibilities to either rent or own. We'll just see what happens.

O.k., so I must comment on American Idol. Chris got the boot yesterday. My wife definitely said this week might produce some shocking results, and it did. Apparently, Chris was NOT everyone's favorite to win.

Now on to my favorite show, The Amazing Race. Finally, MoJo lost. I really, really, really didn't like them. On a plus side, my favorite team B.J. & Tyler (a.k.a., the Hippies) managed to win, and look like they could possibly win the race. I must admit though, everytime I see them, I fully expect them to whip out a Frisbee and start playing some ultimate, folf, or just tossing the 'bee around.

Now, if school just won't hurry up and get done.

Another excuse for the lack of updates

Real Life.

With there being only a few weeks of school left, I've found that I don't have much time for updates.

Nothing really exciting going on. Latest tests show that Squirmy is doing well.

Darn real life (i.e, work)